Teardown details innards of new Nook Tablet

Barnes & Noble calls its just-released Nook Tablet a "media device" for reading electronic books and magazines, and streaming audio and video. There's now one less Nook after the screwdriver crew at iFixit.com dissembled one.

The Nook is a 7-inch tablet, weighing 14.1 ounces. It features a 1024 x 600 touch screen. It has a hefty 1GB of RAM, along with 16GB of internal storage and a 32GB expandable SD card. It's powered by a 1GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP4 chip. It has a 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi radio. The custom operating system is based on Google's Android firmware.

The Nook Tablet is priced at $249, and the more-than-just-books seller dropped the price of the first Nook, the Nook Color, to $199.

(The original Color was well-reviewed for Network World by Howard Wen in June. The Nook Tablet adds two of the three improvements he suggested: a faster CPU, and streaming media support. Still missing: a 3G wireless option.)

The first thing the iFixit crew found: The Nook is a lot harder to get into than the Kindle Fire, which doesn't bode well for the intrepid band of do-it-yourself repairistas. "Anyone wanting to embark on this adventure will need to gear up with both metal and plastic spudgers, plastic opening tools, a Torx T5 screwdriver, and an extra ounce of patience," writes Miroslav Djuric, iFixit's director of technical communication. "Loads of adhesive, a fair number of screws, and a perplexing internal design guarantees some frustrating situations."

Microsoft previously sued Barnes & Noble, charging its use of Android violated a range of Microsoft patents. Barnes & Noble has counter-attacked, claiming the patents are trivial and Microsoft is trying to control Android's development. (Alan Shimel, who writes NW's Open Source Fact and Fiction blog, has a recent post critical of Microsoft's actions.)

Reviews for the Kindle Fire have been "less than glowing," according to our roundup of industry reactions. The Fire compared poorly to the larger-screened iPad; some thought it was a knockoff of RIM's poorly received PlayBook tablet. For many reviewers, its strongest feature was its comparatively cheap price of $199.

Copyright 2018 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.